His Last Command, My First Concern

N-V-ous?

ME: But my lens is no match to what they have. I am ashamed of my pictures ma! But its OK, not complaining.

HER: Don’t worry pups, one day (in His time), God will show you if you need that extra blessing!

When I began typing the message, I knew that I was envious, and I immediately corrected my thoughts and was annoyed with my own self for even thinking this way. These are the moments in life when we compare and complain, but catching my breath back was surely a thankful moment.

Why was I suddenly comparing and envying what I did not have? I am never going to be satisfied, when will it be ‘enough’ for me? And it was at this very moment of my making the comment with my wife that I was also made aware that the more I reply on God and practice gratitude for all he provides will I be able to overcome the dissatisfaction that comes from envy.

If I chose to always compare myself to others — checking my status and updating my profile, looking at how many likes I have and counting the number of comments — every single day just brings more trouble and pain. There’s no way for me to see my blessings because the glass is always half-empty. I am very thankful that I am immediately reminded that if I can trust God as the source of my happiness, I should not have any desire to compare myself to anyone else. Why am I not able to understand that I am loved and that He, remains in charge of my life, through pleasant circumstances as well as painful ones?

The greetings flow in today for us father’s, the wish is ‘Happy’ and my only prayer is that we can be happy father’s or mother’s always, everyday. It is not funny to just make it one day of the year to make a father or mother happy, it has to be everyday and, the only way we can achieve this is to be able to count our blessings.

We sat for hours inside this hut to capture The hooded pitta (Pitta sordida). It was dark, it was difficult but I am so thankful that even without a nice image, I am still very happy I got this image! Yes, I am sure if I had better ‘gear’, it would have been a much better picture but am I not thankful that I was able to get what I so desired to get – capture the image of this bird !

That same day, we were fortunate to see the Hombron’s kingfisher or the blue-capped kingfisher (Actenoides hombroni), Wikipedia has just two lines to say about this rare bird, seen only in the southern part of the country and since 1980, only seen in 7 locations! Wow, isn’t this rare? Well, thankful that we get to spot this mother and her juvenile, not the greatest image again but, very thankful to be able to capture this!